Kids Get Crafty: 5 Little Ducks went Swimming One Day…

March 16, 2011

Welcome back to Kids Get Crafty! This week we have a very simple and fun craft for you.. it has already provided hours of fun in our house – these little 6 stone ducks! It all started with a walk on the beach. We collect 10s of stones and dragged them home… once home, what do we do with them?! I like crafts that you can play with, i.e. they don’t end up just “standing around”, filling your house and collecting dust. So to Red Ted’s delight, I suggested making “Five little ducks, that went swimming one day”.

I decided to make them different sizes, so that we also have a “sorting” game – sort by size, by weight and counting them all… one of our stones is quite small. So please *take care* with younger children. If need be, make them all larger and the same size!

I also think, that these make a lovely little “Easter” craft. After all, our ducklings look a little more chick like that duck like! Not that it matters, of course!

RED TED ART TV

The Book… or

Well, there are number of books you can buy relating to “5 Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day”. Just type it into Amazon and take a look! But today is a “Sing & Make” session… sorry, for those who were hoping for a book!!!

This is so ridiculously simple, you will wonder why you hadn’t thought of it sooner…

Materials: lots of stones, though you only need 6, white & yellow paint (we used acrylics, but you could use other paint and then varnish it, OR do the “hot stones & crayons” trick), tab of red and black paint

1) Sort your stones by size: you will need 6! And it would be great if you could get stones that “stand up”. Two of ours don’t but Red Ted doesn’t seem to mind.

2) Paint one white for the mum, 5 yellow for the little ducks. This is the tricky bit: how do you persuade a 3 year old that you can’t paint them ALL white, or ALL yellow or ALL green? Two tips: firstly, show them this post – I find if Red Ted knows what we are making – i.e. can visualise the result, he is more likely to follow instructions and secondly, have more stones on hand, that the 3year old can paint to his/ her heats delight!! You win. They win!

3) Let dry. Once dry, you may need to touch up the paint a little on the spots where the stone was resting.

4) Once try – add tiny eyes and a line for a beak – we found “simple is best”. Red Ted was dying to stick on his oh so favourite Googly eyes… but the small stones were too small. So we didn’t. I think they look nice.

All crafts welcome in the link up party!!

But.. what crafts have YOU made out of stones? And what traditional nursery rhymes and songs have you turned into games? I would love to see them all!

Oh my goodness, these are so simple! How is it I haven’t thought to do this? 🙂 J loves “5 little ducks went out one day…”. Being not yet two, ours may not look quite so pretty but hey it’s all good fun. Yay! A great inside activity, which is what we need seeing as though it hasn’t stopped pouring for days. Thanks for tomorrow’s activity 🙂

You heat your stones in the oven and then you “draw” on them with crayons – the crayons melt all over the stone and look pretty – I haven’t tried it yet, as am worried about burning little fingers.. but it is a popular craft!

When in Southwold last year, we did kind of ‘live’ version on this; we decorated pebbles and stones but actually there on the beach!
We used felt tips rather than paint – all I had in my bag – and my two children (aged three and five then) made a prince, a princess, then a king and a queen and eventually a whole palace household emerged from carefully selected stones. Everyone in our party got in on the action and soon we had carriages and cars for the family, beds and other furniture. They was even a royal television.

When it was time to go, we each took one favourite pebble character or object and left the others to be washed clean by the sea (non-toxic, washable pens, you see!)

Want to make a little family of chicks though… will show my two littlies your idea!

So cute. My 3.5 yr old would be all over this. She loves this song too. We act out Jack and Jill with a boy and girl doll on the slide and also Jack be Nimble by jumping over a fat candle (unlit) or a can. We also like to act out Rock a bye baby on their little rocking chair.

I will have to try this with my craft time kiddos at the library. Looks like a lot of fun!! I would love it if you would link this up to my Marvelous Mess party. Each party I pick one project to feature on my sidebar for a week!! Here is the link: http://bit.ly/i5BHt8

[…] when we go quack, quack T also loved using the book from Red Ted Art and creating her own 5 Little Ducks to go with the rhyme. This Rhyme counts backward but unlike Ten Fat Sausages it does it in […]